PAL/EONTOLOGY. 



Case, E. C, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Study of the 

 vertebrate fauna and palceogeography of North America in the Permian 

 period, with especial reference to world relations. (For previous reports see 

 Year Books Nos. 2, 4, 8-21.) 



The year was largely devoted to a study of the terrestrial deposits of Per- 

 mian age in Europe, South Africa, and Australia. The exposures were traced 

 and particular areas were studied intensively. The itinerary led through 

 England and Scotland, from the Saar region across Germany to Prague and 

 into the Permo-carboniferous basins of Czechoslovakia, into central France, 

 the Maritime Alps, Italy, and Sicily. In South Africa several weeks were 

 spent in the Karroo and as far north as the Zambesi River, identifying the 

 various life zones and studying the fauna and the sediments. In Australia 

 the glacial and interglacial beds of the Permian and Permo-carboniferous 

 were examined at various localities. Final work was done in New Zealand. 



Much time was spent in museums and libraries gathering literature and 

 examining specimens. In every place visited information and guidance 

 were given in the most courteous and helpful manner. Much of the value of 

 the trip lay in the opportunity to discuss local problems with the men best 

 acquainted with the areas. From the large amount of material gathered it is 

 hoped that a report of value may be made upon the environment of vertebrate 

 life in the late Paleozoic. 



Chaney, Ralph W., Berkeley, California. Research Associate in Palceobotany. 

 (For previous report see Year Book No. 21.) 



Following the plan of work adopted several years ago, the fossil floors of 

 the John Day Basin have served as the center of field and laboratory studies 

 during the past year. The use of fossil plants from north-central Oregon as a 

 starting point for the study of the Tertiary floras of the West is particularly 

 appropriate in view of their occurrence there in three of the four major units 

 of the Tertiary. The John Day Basin is centrally located with respect to 

 several of the other Pacific Coast areas from which plant fossils are secured, 

 giving this region a geographic advantage as a starting-point for correlation 

 studies; and the plant fossils are abundant and sufficiently well preserved to 

 give a fairly complete record of the plant life of the Tertiary. 



Up to the present time, floras related to those of the John Day Basin have 

 been found in the Coast Ranges near San Francisco Bay and in southwestern 

 Oregon, on the west side of the Sierras from Tuolumne County into Plumas 

 County, California, in the Cascades at the Gorge of the Columbia River and 

 northward at Ellensburg, Washington, and in the Great Basin Province from 

 northern Nevada, eastern Oregon, southwestern Idaho, and east-central 

 Washington, and are roughly 700 miles from north to south and 300 miles 

 from east to west. There are closely related floras in Eurasia from Switzerland 

 to southern Manchuria, and northward in the polar regions. The study of the 

 John Day plants may therefore be expected to throw light on the conditions 

 existing in much of the northern hemisphere during the Tertiary. 



Most of the work of the past year has been concerned with the intermediate 

 of the three John Day floras, that from Bridge Creek, which is of Upper Eocene 



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